John Galloway

John Galloway joins SportBusiness
Journal’s Forty Under 40 Hall of Fame this year, a recognition of sustained
success for an executive who is guided in business by a belief in long-term
deals.

John
Galloway

• Title: Director
of sports marketing

• Company: Pepsi

• Age: 38

• Education: B.S.,
journalism, Manhattan College, 1989

• Family: Wife,
Denise; daughter, Julia, 7; son, J.J., 4

• Career: Worked
for Burson-Marsteller Public Relations and Wunderman Cato Johnson Sports
Group, where he handled sports marketing for Miller Brewing; worked as an
account supervisor on Pepsi with Tracy Locke Partnership; joined Pepsi in
1996, spending time as a brand manager for Mountain Dew and as director
of flavors marketing in Europe; promoted to current position in 2001

• Last vacation: San Diego

• Last book read: "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich

• Last movie seen: "Meet the Fockers"

• Greatest achievement: This year, it was thwarting Coke's decision to have eight cars in our
title Pepsi 400 race.

• Greatest disappointment: I didn't get to come back to run the New York City Marathon, but I'm on
it for 2005.

• Business advice: Take a job that has to do with your passion so that you enjoy your life
24 hours a day.

“We don’t want
to rent relationships,” said Galloway, Pepsi’s director of sports
marketing since 2001. “We want long-term relationships so we can really
invest in them and do neat stuff. We don’t work well when we are looking
at a contract on a daily basis.”

Galloway last year helped
negotiate a long-term extension of Pepsi’s sponsorship with the NFL, a
deal that now runs through 2011. The nature of the agreement is vintage Galloway:
He wants no part of short-term deals, preferring instead to lock up key sports
properties for the long haul to protect Pepsi’s brand.

Pepsi’s long list
of sports properties includes a long-term sponsorship of Jeff Gordon and a NASCAR
Nextel Cup Series race; Major League Baseball; and naming-rights deals in Denver,
Indianapolis and Albany, N.Y. In addition, Pepsi’s Mountain Dew brand is
lead sponsor of the Dew Action Sports Tour, which debuts this year.

Mountain Dew long ago established
itself as the biggest brand in action sports. Galloway now is banking on the
company’s five-year sponsorship of the NBC-Clear Channel tour at a reported
$3.6 million per year to forge even deeper inroads.

“We’ve always
subsidized action sports and built a successful platform, and now we have a
vested interest to make it even larger,” Galloway said.

Those who know Galloway
say he’s also working to spread the Mountain Dew brand through outlets
other than sports.

“[Galloway] is going
to be leading the charge on some Mountain Dew entertainment stuff later in the
year, and those are the things I’m impressed with,” said John Tatum,
a partner of Genesco Sports Enterprises, which counts Mountain Dew as a client.
“[Galloway] sees an opportunity and then goes full force through the door.”

While Galloway insists
on long-term agreements with Pepsi’s sports properties, Pepsi takes a different
approach with its executives, preferring a management strategy of regularly
rotating executives into new jobs. Galloway’s predecessor, Katie Lacey,
spent just two years on the job before being moved.

Before Galloway assumed
the post, he worked as brand manager for Mountain Dew and as flavors director
for Pepsi’s Europe and sub-Saharan Africa business.

So is it time for a new
assignment?

“As long as every
year there are challenges, I’m not looking to be jettisoned anytime soon,”
he said. “But it’s not up to me.”

Galloway, an Army brat,
relishes the battles that come with his job. Four weeks before last year’s
Pepsi 400 NASCAR race, Galloway learned that Coca-Cola was planning to run eight
cars in the race, posing a major threat in the ongoing branding competition
between the two soda giants.

Immediately, his team went
into action, creating a promotion that would give fans a free can of Pepsi Edge
if Jeff Gordon won the race, helping create a buzz around the Pepsi brand. As
if on cue, Gordon won the race.

“We have nine people
assigned to our properties, and they take it seriously,” Galloway said.
“I am a pusher and a bit aggressive, but it was the best of a team effort.”

The big challenge this
year, Galloway said, is to keep sports marketing at the top of Pepsi’s
overall branding strategy.

“You have music, technology
and gaming, and the question is, how do you keep sports innovative and on the
forefront of consumer promotions,” he said. “It’s tough to build
brand equity simply through traditional advertising. You have to market through
every channel and communication, and today there are a million channels, and
we have to make sure the channels are effective.”

FORTY
UNDER 40 HALL OF FAME

“John Galloway is a
seasoned professional and committed partner to Major League Baseball. His entrepreneurial
spirit, creativity and innovation have made him an industry leader, which is
illustrated by his accomplishments at Pepsi. John’s passion and excitement
about his work only enhances his abilities as a marketer, which is why I am
so proud to count him among my business partners and friends.”

John Brody, senior vice president,corporate sales and marketing, MLB

“John brings a lot
of enthusiasm and passion to Pepsi’s sports marketing endeavors. When he
believes in a direction or a cause, then he’s going to channel all of his
energies to seeing that through. He does a great job of managing and motivating
his people … not only his employees, but his agency support, as well.”

John Tatum, partner, Genesco Sports Enterprises

“The thing I appreciate
the most is his passion for what he does. Some go about their business matter-of-factly,
but John believes in it and it resonates through both his expressions and the
way he represents the brand. He’s a tough negotiator and he comes in and
tells you what he can and can’t do. He understands and appreciates that
one-sided deals aren’t beneficial.”